Survivorship - Shelby's Story

From M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Duration: 03:18

Narrator:
In January of 2000 at the age of 12, Shelby was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. 6 rounds of high dose chemotherapy followed… then the unthinkable.

Shelby:
You have cancer, and you’re having your leg amputated at 12 years old. That’s kind of a lot to handle. And again, news like that just sort of bounced off at first, and then the more I thought about it, that was harder to digest, because that was something that… I’m going to have to live with an amputation for the rest of my life, and I’m never going to get over that and it’s always going to be with me. I think I was really concerned about, you know, am I going to be normal after this. Am I going to look normal, am I going to walk normal, and I didn’t know the answer to that, because I’d never met an amputee. I’d never seen an amputee.

Narrator:
Vigorous physical therapy helped Shelby regain her ability to walk. She wished there’d been someone who’d gone through an amputation she could have talked to during the whole process. As a cancer survivor, she now makes herself available to others.

Shelby:
I go back and I try to talk to patients that are either just going through chemo or are having an amputation in the future to kind of be that person for them and just let them know that I’ve been through it, I’ve been hip deep in this, and it was awful at the time, it was terrible at the time, but life goes on and it gets back to normal, and you can have a normal life and be happy again and it doesn’t ruin your life by any means.

Narrator:
Shelby did not let anything stop her.

Shelby:
I was in 6th grade when I was diagnosed, and then the following year in 7th grade I tried out for cheerleading, and I made it, and I sort of got back into the swing of things and started taking tumbling classes again, and learning how to run again, and stuff like that, and I went through all of high school, I was on my cheerleading squad, I was on Varsity cheerleading, I could do everything all the other girls did, and I got really involved in my school. I was on student council. I was senior class president my senior year, just got really involved in things.

Narrator:
Now in college, Shelby reflects on her life after cancer treatment.

Shelby:
It was such a serious experience that I don’t think I’ll ever forget about it or you know I think about it everyday, because obviously I live with my prosthesis so it’s something I think about every day, but I think about it in a positive light, definitely, it’s not something that I think about negatively. It shaped the person that I am today. It didn’t ruin my life by any means. It didn’t put any boundaries on me or stop me from doing anything I wanted to do. It didn’t affect me in a bad way necessarily.

Narrator:
And about the small scar left from the surgery to place her Porta-cath…

Shelby:
I have a small scar right here, but it’s right underneath where your bathing suit is, and it’s really not bad. I’m kind of proud of it actually. It’s just a reminder, sort of…It’s kind of like a badge of honor. It reminds me of what I went through and that I made it, you know.